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I’m not sure whether or not I’m meant to feel reassured or frightened in a country where hotels feel the need to remind me than guns and grenades are not wecome. At Hotel La Noria in Siem Reap I think I was safe. With its leafy garden and swimming pool it is a comfortable escape from the bustle on the street at a cost of $40 plus a night.
It is also reassuring that being a Childsafe hotel – one that does not allow the sexual exploitation of children –  the whining and screaming I could hear from behind closed doors had more to do with scrape knees and tummy aches than burglary.

To say that weapons are tolerated at the Chayva hotel in Battambang is an understatement. All you have to do is declare them, along with your personal details, at check-in to this $5 a night joint. To save my blushes I smuggled a penknife in. The sheets were grubby and insects fell out of the ceiling onto the grubby sheets of our bed and to be quite honest it wasn’t worth it.
Apart from a string of charming French terraces along the river, a couple of Wats and a cooking school there isn’t too much to Battambang. It’s more of a chill out zone, stopover after the river journey from Siem Reap and a gateway to intrepid travelers who want to discover the real Cambodia.

Worth a visit is the Riverside Balcony Bar, a traditional style two storey wooden house overlooking the Stung Sangker (river). Apparently Angelina Jolie (I’d imagine without her brace of Dessert Eagles) visited here. It overlooks local allotments. We hogged a daybed and enjoyed a couple of drinks and copped-out by ordering omelette and chips.
Travel Tip: Outside our hotel we were offered $4 trips to the bus station, which seemed a little pricy considering it’s less than 1km away. Instead we bought tickets from the booth in the market (marked 34 in the Lonely Planet guide). At 6.30am we rocked up there as arranged, and free of charge two motorcycles ferried us to the bus station. Jak left behind the bottled water she bought. The stallholder brought the water to the bus station and also gave us a bag of sweets. I was quite taken with the stinky, slightly vomity durian chews.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Deep fried and served out by the recycled condensed milk tin on the road-side, who can resist these tasy crickets and beetles? Well, about 30 people judging by our bus load of mainly locals. There was one chap though who tucked into a big bag of beetles, the secret being that you flick off the hard unedible wings before popping the bodies into your mouth.

I’m afraid I was a wimp having poisoned myself two days earlier and was drawn again to the delicious rice-stuffed bamboo below.

At another stop I picked-up excellent and cheap – about 50 cents each – steamed dumplings stuffed with onions, egg and herbs.

I bought a barbequed banana leaf that was tied like a christmas cracker. As I opened it I was excited by the the crispy caramalised rice but then was worried about the flesh inside.

It looked like it was also filled with pink and uncooked flesh at first. Looking closer it seemed like it was offal. But no, it was a single pink banana. I guess the banana and the sticky rice had been steamed first then barbequed for the caraalised effect. I savoured the taste all afternoon and evening.

At the meal stops I was struck how elegant the local woman are at weeing in public. Simultaneously, a woman would crouch while lifting her sarong as elegantly as a stork lifts its wings (really I was trying not to watch too closely but there were a lot of them). The sarong provided the perfect privé (assuming you are not wearing knickers) as long as you don’t mind being seen by everybody passing on the road.

Men, to avoid the smelly loos, do it the expected way (as I did) near or against a smelly tree.

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You’ll want food for the eight hour trip to Battambang, the most beautiful boat trip in Cambodia. Plenty of locals will hassle you to buy French sticks bananas and water.

The tiny bananas are delicious.

But whatever you don’t don’t sit on the roof unless you want a very pink sore evening.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Take one thich segment of bamboo. Add rice, beans and coconut milk. Stuff the top with rice hay and place in embers until cooked.
When cool, peel away the bamboo on one side. Remove the plug of hay and pick out the rice and beans with your fingers.
These are available all along the roadside. Simple and delicious.
I was probably ripped off but still it cost only about 30 cents.

PS: Click on the photos tag above or on the pics on this page for more pics of Cambodian food and temples.

Popularity: 9% [?]

I’m back on street food and the BBQ snake looks particularly good.

These look like little bears but are actually frogs. Not today as I ate a ponds worth yesterday.

The snake comes with a salt and pepper mix, fresh herbs and limes.

I chew on the skin and it does taste good. Why shouldn’t it? It is no different from eel and the snake tastes a bit like smoked eel which I guess is from the BBQ. It is very bony though. rather than eat with my fingers I would prefer to remove the meat and eat in a salad.

Here I go:

Popularity: 9% [?]

Now I really do know the meaning of green papaya salad at the Srassrang View Restaurant near Angkor Wat. You’ve been working in the fields all day – or as I have cycling 40km along hot dusty roads. Your mouth is dry, your mind weak and the body is tired.
Green papaya has everything you need. First the finely chopped/ grated papaya refreshes then the chilli kicks in and releases the endorphins that will keep you going. Protein comes in the form of small prawns (shrimp) helped along with limes and salty fish sauce. So powerful are these endorphins that they counteract the effects of two tall cold bottles of beer.
I’m back and ready to attack large monuments again.
But first I must eat this complimentary dessert. Covered in grated coconut, these rice balls are filled with palm sugar. Bite in and the sweet flavour bursts out into your mouth. I want more.
This little place on the banks of the Sras Srang – the royal bath, which is full of local kids swimming – is pricey but cares about the preparation of it’s food. The deep fried spring rolls are almost in a light batter filled with some (unidentifiable but delicious) meat and herbs.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Dragon fruit to the right. 

Fresh off the plane, I haven’t quite got my street food legs yet. Off for a Thai instead at
Chivit Thai ( 130 Ph Wat Bo, Siem Reap  012 830 761) set is a wooden pavillion and garden.

Complimentory spring rolls, a scorching green papaya salad ( I asked for hot) and fish cakes in dipping sauce. The most interesting dish was squid served with egg yolks. That’s solid yellow half yolks. The tiny squid were tender the eggs just seemed right.

Finished off with a salad of watermelon, papaya, mango, durian, pineapple and dragon fruit. It was all very refreshing but I still wish this joint served beer. My mouth is dusty after over 12 hours travel.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Air conditioned and with free wireless internet: The Blue Pumpkin, Siem Reap. Very cool in both senses.

This is civilisation. Fresh spring rolls. Top notch cocktails, mine a rice liquor concoction with lemongrass and star anise; Jak’s a margarita.

Oh yes, and that thing that is so so hard to find in Australia: free wireless internet.

Siem Reap is one of those places with one reason for being: the vast Angkor complex. It is so much more than only Ankgor Wat. It is thousands of square kilometres of some of the most spectacular ruins in the world. And I mean up there with Mexico, Italy and Greece (I’m afraid I haven’t ticked of the pyramids yet).

Yet the town for the most part exudes a lot of charm. It perhaps is the French influence of low rise colonial shuttered buildings and the Asian open style of dining room.

Of course, you have to ignore the concrete boxes that line the 7km road from the airport.

Back to the spring rolls:

Popularity: 11% [?]